story RATING |
 5.00 (Highly recommend) from 1 votes (767 Visits) |
Welcome to our humble house and garden 
Our House & Bush Garden which we have lived in it for over 20 years, is based on passive solar principals. Janelle and I bought the land 30 years ago, and had no previous experience in building or designing houses. We designed and built our concrete interlocking block house ourselves, on time and on budget, and learned lots of new skills doing it. If we did it again, changes to design/construction would be minor and based upon what we learned actually building the house and changing world opinions in relation to resource usage and conservation.
The House The practical design of the house has fulfilled the family’s needs through the various life stages and we find its spaces stimulating, although we understand it may not be to everyone’s taste.
Concrete interlocking block design was cheaper, quicker and easier for us to build than a brick veneer house and requires no cooling and little heating due to its design and mass- cross and convection ventilation, and protective vegetation.
The house is positioned to maximize solar principals, access to sunlight for PV cells and solar hot water while retaining the existing native plants and eco systems and give privacy on a 700sm block.
Energy and Resource Usage
We are a family of 4 adults and 1 dog and car usage is around 10,000 km/year. We live 3km from a train line and use bus/train most of the time. I (Mick) ride a push scooter to link public transport and work and sometimes rides a bike from home. Car is usually used to carry “stuff” or when time is a factor.
Solar generation system is 2.6 Kw, 16 panel PV solar unit made by BP which supplies electricity to the house, with the excess being fed back into the electricity grid.
Solarhart solar hot water system is over 20 years old and working well with one element change in 2008
Rainwater tanks are used to fill the dip pool, water the garden, the washing machine, fire fighting, etc.
We recycle shower water to flush toilets using buckets and are experimenting with flushing devices.
Our local native garden has no lawn, does not require polluting mowers, blowers, trimmers etc We harvest firewood for heating and compost vegetable scraps for the roof top vegetable garden
Using own energy to do tasks like sawing, sweeping, raking, traveling etc (saves going to the gym).
Other Areas of Interest ·
Roof top vegetable garden (on concrete slab) gets sun all year round and allows for native vegetation retention. Also helps cool house in summer.Solar PV cells, solar hot water heater and space heating positioned aesthetically to collect sun’s rays.
Combustion Heater made from old disused truck brake drums is very efficient.
Inside/outside recreation and garden work areas that ‘fulfill the occupants’ ‘needs’ such as clothes lines, compost bins, rainwater collection areas, children’s play area, BBQ areas and so on.
Use of waste/salvaged materials for all fences, carport/pool, awnings, buildings and so on. It includes cut privet and bamboo from bush regeneration and old roofing and disused building materials.We treat our waste water before it enters the sewer and shower water is used to flush the toilet.
Also of interest is the bushland behind our house where much bush regeneration has taken place. It contains a unique hanging swamp, vulnerable/rare plants, including Darwinia biflora, Lasiopetalum joyceae and Eucalyptus squasmosa.
We all love living here, and find the spaces stimulating and segmented whilst being integrated.
Mick and Janelle Marr and kids 
(August 2009) (
